Our Fitness Blog

5 Habits That Can Be Detrimental to Your Weight Loss Journey

There is nothing more frustrating than months and months of working hard to achieve your goals and not getting the results that you want. You go to the gym weekly and deny yourself your favorite foods, for what? To stand on the scale and see the same number over and over. Well, before you give up on your fitness routine and declare that you will never lose those excess pounds, you should take a look at your daily routine to see if there may be something there that could be sabotaging your fitness routine and keeping you from achieving your weight loss goals.

Dieting. Many of us think that we can go on a diet and quickly achieve our weight loss goals. However, as most of us seem to find out, this is not the case. You will eventually go off your diet and start eating "normally" again. So, if you happened to lose any weight you will gain it right back. You need to try to adopt a healthier way of eating right that isn't short term. It is also better to give in to your desires once in a while. If you try to constantly deny yourself something you love, you will hate your diet and become even more frustrated when it does not work out the way you want it.

Low caloric intake. It is important to watch your caloric intake to lose those excess pounds. However, there are many other factors that you need to consider. You can not solely rely on the calorie counts of your food. You need to be sure that you’re not only eating healthy, but that you’re eating the correct balance of carbs, protein to fat ratio with each and every meal. If you skip this rule, you’re not doing your body any favors, even if your meals are “healthy”. The 9Round Nutrition program will keep you right on track with this.

Focusing on the scale. We all do it. A lot of us hop on the scale multiple times a day, and for what? To see if after a few hours if the needle will point a little lower. It can seem ridiculous thinking about it, but we do it everyday. It does seem fairly reasonable that if we want to lose weight, the best way to measure our success is through weighing ourselves. However, the scale alone can be extremely misleading. There are many things that it does not measure such as, increased strength, dropping sizes, gaining endurance and energy, increasing muscles mass and decreasing body fat. Just because the scale is not moving, does not necessarily mean you are not achieving your fitness goals. For true readings, you would want a proper bodyfat/body water scale such as a Tanita. These are found online easily for $50. It's the most accurate way to measure true fitness progress.

Dieting without exercise. Most of us think that if we do not have the time or energy needed to exercise, then we can easily lose weight through diet alone. It may be possible to shed those pounds through only changing your diet, but it may take longer to get the results that you want and omit all the positives you get from exercising. It will become obvious in no time that you can only cut so much from your diet before you become tired, hungry and feel drained. This can make anyone edgy and frustrated, especially if you happen to notice that your weight loss has seemed to plateaued. Exercise is good for the body even if you're not trying to lose weight, so we don't want to omit this healthy habit from our lives.

Giving up too quickly. We all want to see results right away. However, understanding that it takes time and effort to get the results that we want is invaluable. The most important thing is to remember that you have to give it time. Remember, you didn't put these pounds on in just a few weeks, so don't expect something you've been carrying for months or years to melt away in just weeks. Also, if you have a "bad day" because of one food or workout slip, it's important not to allow that to turn into two bad days, and then three.... It is okay to screw up every now and then, as long as you forgive yourself and immediately get back into your everyday routine. Starting with the very next meal, not the next day!

It is a journey that requires patience when trying to lose those excess pounds, but we need to remember that slow and steady wins the race. Do not expect to change your everyday routine in mere seconds and see results from your new and healthier routine right away. This news isn't meant to depress you, but rather, if you accept this, you will end up feeling less discouraged while you reach towards your goals.